Expectation and Reality

A couple of weeks ago it was decided that my fiance’s family would hold a birthday dinner for me that I didn’t want in the first place. Tonight is the night and I really don’t want to go.

The expectation is that I’ll be there and I’ll be pleasant and grateful and full of praise. But the reality is I’m not. I’m having a bad day at work already and I’m really not in the mood to have to spend the night with my fiance’s family who despite having the best of intentions can’t fathom anyone wanting to spend time alone.

Of course my fiance will be beside himself when I tell him I have no intention of going tonight because it means he then has to explain it to his mother. His mother is someone who requires a 10,000 word essay, stat decs and witnesses to verify why you can’t attend something. Apparently “I’m in a shit mood” just doesn’t cut it. Neither does “I didn’t want this.”

And I know how this conversation will go between him and I – he’ll tell me they’re all expecting me and I’ll have to remind him that I said time and time again I didn’t want this.

This isn’t the first of these but they certainly haven’t been occurring for long. It hasn’t slipped my notice that these ‘birthday events’ started about 3 years ago, right around the time fiance’s brother’s jealous ex-girlfriend disappeared from our lives.

So who is in the right here? Do I just suck up going to an ‘event’ that I didn’t want in the first place to appease others or do I stick to my guns and just stay at home like I initially wanted?

Not going means fighting and I don’t have that in me today. It’s too exhausting. But I also don’t want to spend my night in a bad mood being forced to do something I have no desire to take part in.

So the reality is that I will go. But I promise myself that next time, I will say no and enforce it. I won’t be bullied into having something done for me that I don’t want and I will shut down any conversation about it immediately.